Sporting Life's All-Australians

The following piece owes a great deal to George Cotsanis, who is behind the brilliant My World Is Round Facebook page. It began when he went through the memorabilia collection of Moreland legend Eric Heath and discovered a trophy for "All-Australian Selection" in 1952. An accompanying letter revealed the monthly sporting magazine Sporting Life selected a team. He then embarked on a  search of the Sporting Life archives at the MCC Library and uncovered the full set of All-Australian squads for all the football codes between 1947 and 1955.

You will note some years merely had the player's state mentioned, some years would also feature their club. I've since researched all the current clubs of the selected players, as well as expanding on the custom of the time of simply using an initial and surname by uncovering all the christian names of the squads.

The selector shows a heavy bias towards New South Wales. In the inaugural 1947 squad the only interstate player is Queensland's Bob Lawrie, who played for Leichhardt-Annandale in the NSW competition that year. He would be selected a further four times upon his return to Queensland. There also seems to be a bias against the great Reg Date, selected just twice.

The full list is:

1947

Norman Conquest (North Shore/NSW), Joe Marston (Leichhardt-Annandale/NSW), Cec Drummond (Metters/NSW), Dave Coote (Adamstown/NSW), Bob Lawrie (Leichhardt-Annandale/QLD), Kevin O'Neill (Cessnock/NSW), Charlie Stewart (Lysaghts/NSW), Jim Cunningham (Wollongong-Bulli/NSW), Reg Date (Canterbury-Bankstown/NSW), Ron Hughes (Metters/NSW), Ray Marshall (Granville/NSW)

1948

Ken Hough (Drummoyne/NSW), Joe Marston (Leichhardt-Annandale/NSW), Cec Drummond (Metters/NSW), Bob Bignall (Corrimal/NSW), Dave Coote (Adamstown/NSW), Robert Murray (Canterbury-Bankstown/NSW), Ernie Kemp (Lake Macquarie/NSW), Allan Johns (Adamstown/NSW), Frank Parsons (Leichhardt-Annandale/NSW), Ron Hughes (Canterbury-Bankstown/NSW), Wally Cansick (Thistle/QLD).

1949

Jim Jenkins (Woonona/NSW), Joe Marston (Leichhardt-Annandale/NSW), Cec Drummond (Drummoyne/NSW), Bob Lawrie (Bundamba Rovers/QLD), Bill Wilson (Leichhardt-Annandale/NSW), Bob Bignall (Corrimal/NSW), George Sanders (Granville/NSW), Allan Johns (Adamstown/NSW), Gordon Nunn (St Helens/QLD), Jock McMahon (Leichhardt-Annandale/NSW), Alec Barr (Brighton/VIC).

1950

Norman Conquest (Metters-Canterbury/NSW), Kevin O'Neill (Cessnock/NSW), Cec Drummond (Drummoyne/NSW), Bob Lawrie (Bundamba Rovers/QLD), Tom Jack (Brighton/VIC), Bob Young (Granville/NSW), Eric Hulme (Granville/NSW), Allan Johns (Adamstown/NSW), Gordon Nunn (St Helens/QLD), Frank Parsons (Leichhardt-Annandale/NSW), Harry Robertson (Leichhardt-Annandale/NSW).

1951

Ron Lord (Auburn/NSW), Doug Wendt (Adamstown/NSW), Kevin O'Neill (Cessnock/NSW), Bob Bignall (Corrimal/NSW), Norm Rowlands (Granville/NSW), Bob Lawrie (Bundamba Rovers/QLD), Jock McMahon (Leichhardt-Annandale/NSW), Eric Hulme (Granville/NSW), Sammy North (Mayfield United/NSW), Frank Parsons (Leichhardt-Annandale/NSW), Harry Robertson (Leichhardt-Annandale/NSW).

1952

Bill Mahoney (Adamstown/NSW), Eric Heath (Moreland/VIC), Frento Mouchka (Hakoah/VIC), Bob Bignall (Corrimal/NSW), Kevin O'Neill (Cessnock/NSW), Angus Drennan (Sunshine United/VIC), Charlie Stewart (Woonona/NSW), Reg Date (Wallsend/NSW), Gordon Nunn (Corinthians/QLD), Jock Cummings (Port Adelaide/SA), Malcolm Wild (Corinthians/QLD).

1953

Bill Henderson (Granville/NSW), Cliff Almond (Cessnock/NSW), Doug Wendt (Auburn/NSW), Bob Lawrie (Bulimba/QLD), Pat Clarke (Hakoah/VIC), Kevin O'Neill (Cessnock/NSW), Charlie Stewart (Woonona/NSW), Jack Lennard (Mayfield United/NSW), Alan Garside (Granville/NSW), Malcolm Wild (Corinthians/QLD), Harry Robertson (Leichhardt-Annandale/NSW).

1954

Bill Henderson (Granville/NSW), Jack Mather (Adelaide Juventus/SA), Kevin O'Neill (Cessnock/NSW), Ron Adair (Maccabeans/WA), Tom Jack (Hakoah/VIC), Bob Young (Corrimal/NSW), Charlie Stewart (Woonona/NSW), Harry Rice (Hakoah/VIC), Ken Learmonth (Corrimal/NSW), Malcolm Wild (Eastern Suburbs/QLD), Harry Robertson (Leichhardt-Annandale/NSW).

1955

Bill Henderson (Granville/NSW), Cliff Almond (Cessnock/NSW), Bill Wilson (Leichhardt-Annandale/NSW), Eric Duff (Balgownie/NSW), Joe Marston (Leichhardt-Annandale/NSW), Cliff Sander (St Helens/QLD), Frank Laughran (Moreland/VIC), Syd Thomas (Hakoah/VIC), Don Hodgson (Victoria Colts/VIC), Jock McMahon (Leichhardt-Annandale/NSW), Ray Neal (Canterbury/NSW).

Most All-Australian Selections:

6: Kevin O'Neill

5: Bob Lawrie

4: Cec Drummond, Harry Robertson, Joe Marston, Charlie Stewart, Bob Bignall, 

3: Allan Johns, Frank Parsons, Gordon Nunn, Jock McMahon, Malcolm Wild, Bill Henderson

Most Selections by Club:

17: Leichhardt-Annandale

10: Granville

8: Cessnock

7: Adamstown

6: Corrimal

5: Hakaoh (Melbourne)

Selections by State:

72: New South Wales

13: Queensland

11: Victoria

2: South Australia

1: Western Australia

Grounds of the Past: Hurlingham Park, East Brighton

Hurlingham Park was the home of the old Brighton Soccer Club. The club played from the East Brighton venue from foundation in 1924 until a move to Elsternwick Park in 1954. In their time there the club were Dockerty Cup winners on five occasions, as well as securing the First Division Championship (then the State Championship) in 1949.

That year the reserves also won their league championship, and a photo of that team on their website gives us a small glimpse at Hurlingham Park featuring a pavilion that no longer stands:

We can see from the plaque on the current pavilion that it was erected in 1955, after Brighton had moved on to the enclosed ground at Elsternwick Park prior to relocating to Dendy Park in 1959.

The ground was, and still remains, the home of the Brighton Union Cricket Club (founded in 1907). As such it would have been another soccer ground in a large open park, probably with the sides roped off to keep spectators away from the touchlines.

The pavilion is situated on the busy Nepean Highway side of the ground. A pre-school sits to the east, housing in the north with a tennis club in the north west corner. To the west of the pavilion sits a memorial to those lost in the First World War:

Hurlingham Park is another ground thousands of people will drive past every day with little idea that the premier footballers in the state once strutted their stuff there. Four sets of traffic lights and less than two kilometres further down the Nepean Highway sits Dendy Park, current home of the Brighton SC. The club struck financial difficulties in the mid-1990's and ceased fielding a senior team in 1996. The strong junior base survived and thrived, and in 2007 a senior team was accepted into the FFV's Provisional League Division Three South East.

As per usual, click on photographs to enlarge.

Old Soccer News

Not as in Old Soccer/New Football. And not as in news updates that are out of date. Instead, let's look at some old copies of Soccer News, the Official Organ of the Victorian Amateur Soccer Football Association back in the day.

There's been a small sample available on-line for a few years at the magnificent Australian Online Football Museum site, specifically at this link.

I've uploaded a few issues myself, like this one:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/187739131/Soccer-News-1952-October-4

The Dockerty Cup Final edition of 1952. A beauty with several team shots of the League winners for the season, as well as the Cup finalists and pen portraits of the players in the Final.

Then there is:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/187738398/Soccer-News-1951-August-25

In the editorial V.J.M.Dixon looks at the problem of the lack of enclosed grounds, whilst club jottings include news from Brighton, Frankston, Polonia and Fifers.

I've also got three issues from the end of the 1949 season:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/187735817/...9-September-10

http://www.scribd.com/doc/187736434/...9-September-17

http://www.scribd.com/doc/187736988/...9-September-24

An exciting time leading up to the Dockerty Cup Final, and a must read for those at the FFV who slowly seem to be coming around to embracing the Dockerty name once again. You can see what it once meant, and hopefully a revival can regain some of the former prestige.

In Search Of....

This is not a post on the American tv show that ran from 1978 to 1982, but I will digress in that direction for a paragraph. If seen at the wrong age, many episodes would have well and truly freaked some kids out, like The Abominable Snowman, Bigfoot, The Bermuda Triangle and the big one, The End of the World. It was what I knew Leonard Nimoy from, not Star Trek.

Last month I mentioned the passing of Alex Barr was noted in the minutes of the VSF Board of Management from April 24, 1990. Since then, I've been in search of more information on Alex Barr and here's some of what I've come up with. He was a Glaswegian, who came to Australia after WWII. In the course of his Victorian career, he would play in every outfield position for Brighton, featuring as an outside left at his peak, which came with a single appearance for Australia in 1949. It was against what was billed as "Yugoslavia", but was in fact touring club side Hajduk Split.

He played for Brighton between 1948 and 1954, apart from a small stint with Prahran at the start of 1953. In that time Brighton were Champions of Victoria in 1949, also winning the Dockerty Cup in 1952. Whilst still playing he was contributing items for Soccer News from 1951, and when he retired his media work grew as he became the soccer reporter for The Age in the 1960's. He also had spots on various radio programs as well as sports panel shows on GTV-9.

The history of the game in Victoria has, sadly, long been neglected. Even now there is no outright History section all on the FFV website. I have been to Gold Medal Nights run by the FFV which have featured people being inducted into the FFV Hall of Fame, yet the link to anything about a Hall of Fame on their website is well hidden. It deserves a more prominent link rather than being hidden in an About Us section. I wouldn't expect it to compare with:

http://www.afl.com.au/news/event-news/hall-of-fame

The FFV should do more than their once a year token effort and truly honour some great people with something more substantial.

So that is what I'm in search of, more of the hidden history of Victorian soccer. I have a book, Spurs: A Complete Record by Bob Goodwin. And a complete record it is, even having the line-ups of friendly matches played in the 1890's. Currently we do not even have the final ladder for every season of the Victorian First Division/State League/Premier League since it began in 1909, let alone the results of all the top flight games. The gaps are vast.

I'm in search of information on Lincoln Mills. The huge textile factory located on Gaffney Street, Coburg fielded a side in the Second Division in 1924 and 1925 before disbanding in 1926. They were probably around in 1923, but The Age only published Division One results that year. The Argus tells me there was a massive fire at the Mill in 1923, there were frequent break-ins and robbery attempts, and at least one unfortunate female worker got her hair caught in a knitting machine and met an untimely demise. Their ground was listed as being "Batman", the name of the nearest train station just off Sydney Road. The former factory site is now a retail block containing Bunnings and Harvey Norman stores, with one great big brick chimney still preserved for posterity.

In the next In Search Of... post, I will go back to 1909 and list what is needed to complete the final table for the inaugural season. Until then, if you want to search anything for yourself, try starting at these links:

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper?q=

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=MDQ-9Oe3GGUC&dat=19231109&b_mode=2&hl=en